The present invention relates to a stitch presser for knitting machines. More particularly, the present invention provides a stitch presser with a slide presser for pressing the knitwear and a supplementary means for pressing the stitches against the needle beds.
In a flat knitting machine where the needles are controlled in both oscillating movements of the carriage by lock fixed below said carriage it is known to mount a device for the control of the stitch presser directly on the carriage, so that one of the slide threads constituting the pressing member of the stitch presser operates when the carriage is moved in an opposite direction. It is also customary to assign one stitch presser device to each knitting system or to each pair of knitting systems, if the knitting is done on two needle beds. Furthermore, it is known to assign one stitch presser to each knitting system or to each pair of knitting systems when the knitting is done on two needle beds and to modify the position of the stitch presser at the end of each stroke of the carriage, so that it is possible to successively work in two opposite directions.
Stitch pressers traditionally include slide threads of different shapes and are sometimes completed by other means such as rollers, blade scrapers or brushes, all being afflicted with the disadvantage of being useable for only part of the knitting fabrics and particularly not for mixed fabrics, for example, one form of slide thread can be used only for a limited lock or mesh density and a selected fabric. The stitch pressers equipped with rollers, blade scrapers, brushes, etc., present the inconvenience of discontinuity of action on the knitwear i.e., the space between the roller, scraper, or brush, and the beginning of a slide thread is not controlled.